I ask you...now who would be daft enough to park a pickup under the flight-path of the world's busiest airport? Don't they know planes land there? Blogging themes, it seems, are like buses. They all come along at once. No sooner does Biglorryblog post a story on Scania and Saab aeroplanes and runaways and photography than I get sent these pictures which celebrate the fact that BAA has recently chosen Mitsubishi's L200 pick-up as its ‘leader vehicles’ for Heathrow airport, where they can be seen getting up to al sorts of high-jinks and scrapes, carrying out a variety of duties on the airfield perimeters and runways.
Operated by Heathrow’s airside operations department, the L200’s primary role is to escort aeroplanes to and from the runways to their stands. The vehicles are also intended to enable staff to carry out various airfield checks, such as observing surface conditions and collecting debris. The vehicles are likely to be in use almost around the clock and, to ensure high visibility, all have been painted bright yellow and had light bars fitted to the roof. Probably a good idea I'd say considering what might happen if a plane hit you....like this.
To read more on airports and photographic timing click through here....
But back to the pick-up story, a spokesman for Heathrow tells Biglorryblog said: “After considering a number of vehicles, the Mitsubishi L200 was chosen primarily because it is available with an excellent automatic and four-wheel-drive transmission system. We have tried using other manual gearbox vehicles before, but these have proved to be unreliable. Each one covers approximately 25,000 miles per year – with different drivers – reliability is a very important factor for us, as vehicle down-time can be very disrupting to the operation of the airfield.” In fact BAA has found the L200s so ideal for its airside operations, it has just ordered another six.
Meanwhile, on the subject of photography and timing both these shots of the L200s at Heathrow are rather nice, although considering that it's one of the World's busiest airports (if not THE busiest) the snapper probably didn't have to wait too long for another plane to come along...as I understand it one aircraft lands at Heathrow every 90 seconds (and I can tell you the passengers are getting pretty fed up with it by now)...old joke worthy of a trot out now and again.
To be fair waiting for a BA plane probably required a little bit more effort...
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